Once Upon A Time
by BlizzardXIII
Summary: "Mukuro-ji, tell me a bedtime story please?" "Kufufu, once upon a time, there was a handsome prince called Mukuron and a beautiful princess called Nagiko, They lived happily until one day, a hideous dragon called Kyouyan kidnapped Nagiko. And so the brave Mukuron went on a journey to rescue the princess..." Family fluff! Rated T for one word and Mukuro being *shivers* nurturing-ish


**Hello! This is a family fluff story between Mukuro and Sho (an OC of mine) who is Hibari's and Chrome's son in this story. **

**This is a 17YL story so Mukuro, Tsuna, Kyoko, Gokudera and Yamamoto are 31 years old, Chrome is 30 years old and Hibari and Ryohei are 32. Hibari and Chrome are married and have a 5 year old boy, Sho. **

**Do enjoy~**

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Mukuro stretched as he made his way to the lounge for a drink to wind down before getting ready for bed. The day had been mostly uneventful except when he had to babysit his playful godson when the kid's parents, Chrome and Hibari went out for their anniversary dinner. Mukuro allowed himself a small smile as he thought of his godson—that kid looked just like a smaller Hibari with Chrome's distinctive violet eyes, he also had a cheerful disposition and seeing a goofy grin on the mini-Hibari's face always made everyone smile.

"Oh, Mukuro, is Sho asleep already?"

"Yes he is, Tsunayoshi." Mukuro said seemingly uncaringly as he walked into the mini bar in the lounge to fix himself a Baileys chocolate drink.

Tsuna smiled as he looked at his Mist guardian. Mukuro may seem indifferent towards the young boy but it had been a total miracle—the way Mukuro cared and indulged the child. In fact, when Sho was born, Mukuro had appeared in the ward, took one look at the babe nestled in Chrome's arms and declared himself the godfather of the newborn. Chrome had agreed of course, much to Hibari's ire. Tsuna had been worrying about the Mist Guardian too, since he had been unconsciously wandering as if he were looking for something, going through a stream of partners without settling on one. Then Sho came and helped to stabilise him, giving him something to anchor himself to. Mukuro would never admit that he doted on the child though, especially since it is _Hibari's _offspring, and people knowing that he liked children really destroyed his badass, creepy-excon image.

"Hey Tsuna! I gotta tell you something really funny!" Yamamoto bounded in suddenly before flopping on the sofa, totally missing Mukuro's presence, "I was walking past the training room today when I saw Mukuro giving Sho a piggy-back ride! And then-"

"Uhh, Takeshi-"

"Wait, let me finish! Mukuro was galloping around—galloping! Imagine it—and letting Sho pull on his hair! What a softie hahaha! And to think that he doesn't even let us tou—AHHH!" Takeshi yelped while rolling off the sofa to dodge the trident that had materialised and stabbed at his throat.

"M-Mukuro! What are you doing here?" Yamamoto laughed nervously. Mukuro growled slightly, "Shut up. Don't you dare spread this around!" Then he glared at Tsuna, who was holding his belly in laughter and growled, "You too, Tsunayoshi! Or you two can forget about sleeping peacefully at night!"

Tsuna and Yamamoto cringed as they remembered Mukuro's inconvenient ability to alter their dreams and replace them with horrible nightmares that leave the victim traumatised and sleep deprived.

"Maa maa, Mukuro, it's not a big deal. You... Make a good horse..?" Yamamoto said in an attempt to placate the irate Mist Guardian, Mukuro was far from mollified though and he snarled, advancing on to Yamamoto with his trident. Just then, before he can do anything, the door to the lounge opened slightly and a mop of obsidian hair peeked in.

"Mukuro-ji?"

"Oya? Sho-kun!" Mukuro froze before he dissolved his trident, "What are you doing here?"

Sho stepped fully into the room and Mukuro swept his eyes over the younger boy's form to check for injuries. Yamamoto snickered when he noticed the action but quickly stopped when Mukuro glared at him.

"I- I can't sleep… Can you tell me a bedtime story?" Sho asked, peering up at Mukuro hopefully. There was a silence as Mukuro felt three pairs of eyes boring into him, judging him and observing his reaction. Tsuna snorted in laughter, breaking the silence.

"No," Mukuro said brusquely, then seeing the boy's crestfallen face, he tacked on, "you are a big boy now aren't you?"

"Pleaseeee?" Sho looked at Mukuro with wide eyes. Mukuro looked right at his huge violet eyes before quickly wrenching his gaze away, tching in disgust. He could never resist the puppy eyes.

"Fine fine," He sighed. Behind him, Tsuna and Yamamoto broke out in peals of laughter as they watched Mukuro surrender to a little boy.

"Come on." Mukuro said shortly then huffed and walked out. Once out of the door, he slowed down to wait for the little boy to catch up. The boy immediately caught his hand and smiled innocently up at him, earning a rare smile from Mukuro.

"Why can't you fall asleep?" Mukuro asked, settling himself on the bed with Sho beside him tucked well and truly in.

"Ryohei-ji ran past earlier shouting about an extreme something and that shocked me awake!" Sho complained, wrinkling his nose.

"That bas- I mean, that guy would pay for this!" Mukuro muttered, catching himself before he cussed in front of the young boy.

Sho giggled, "Aww but Ryohei-ji's actually really nice!" Then seeing Mukuro's irritated face, he continued. "Mukuro-ji's still the best! Can I have my bedtime story now?"

Mukuro's lips quirked up at that, the kid was really just too cute. He had an outgoing, mischievous personality unlike either of his parents and acted very much like the sun that brightens up everyone's day. He has a cloud and mist flame though, courtesy of his parents, but the mist flame was the dominant one. Mukuro had quickly volunteered to teach Sho to harness his mist flames and tutor him on crafting illusions while his father, Hibari, instructed him on physical combat skills. Now, at five years old, Sho could already do accurate illusions of stationary items and fight on par with the rookie Mafiosi.

"Oya oya, aren't you a demanding brat?" Mukuro chastised lightly, "Hmm, let me think… Alright. Once upon a time, there lived a handsome prince called uh… Mukuron, and a beautiful princess called Na-Nagiko." Mukuro made the characters up as he spoke, creating miniature illusions to illustrate his story.

"Oh! The princess looks like Mama!" Sho exclaimed. Then he concentrated and a small castle with turrets materialised behind the prince and the princess.

"Good try, but take note of the details, they are important." Mukuro said, pointing out a turret where the bricks were distorted, "Anyway, they lived happily together until one day, a hideous dragon, Kyouyan, kidnapped princess Nagiko. Thus, the brave prince Mukuron went on a journey to rescue the princess." Upon his words, a small, black and scaly dragon appeared and swooped down to grab the illusionary princess, causing Sho to gasp in horror.

"It was a long and tough journey but Mukuron was determined. On sundown that day, he decided to camp at a ravine." The illusionary scene changed to a scene of a pineapple headed man sitting beside a fire surrounded by high rock walls. "Suddenly, the whole ravine echoed with howls and a lithe, feline—that means cat-like—figure jumped down the ravine, growling, 'GRAHH, I'm the Bandit Werecat Hayatoshi!' Mukuron jumped up immediately and brandished his trident at the werecat only for the werecat to pounce on his bag and grab the dried fishes he had there." Mukuro cursed at himself inwardly, how in the six hells had he come up with that?!

"I wanna do the werecat!" Sho said, scrunching up his face in concentration and an illusion of a small cat appeared, trembled and flickered away. "Aww, I still can't make it move!"

"That comes with practice, Sho-kun." A solid illusion of chibi Gokudera with cat ears and a fluffy tail emerged, slinking and rolling about blissfully with the fishes in his hand. Sho laughed, "That looks like Hayato-ji! He looks so silly!"

"Hayatoshi ran away after Mukuron stabbed at it with his trident and Mukuron finally went to sleep." Mukuro continued. An illusionary Mukuron kufufu'd and poked his trident at the werecat, which backed away with apparent terror then turned tail and bolted. Mukuro snickered to himself as he put a terrified expression on the face of the normally stoic Storm Guardian. He made up the story as he told it, unconsciously taking care not to make it too sadistic since Sho was still innocent and Mukuro still wanted to shield him from the darker side of the world. He would never say that out loud of course, it was a notion buried really deep down in the abyss of his shrivelled, black little heart.

"… Along the way, he met an ogre called Ryoryo who kept destroying the villages nearby. As a service for the village, he helped them to chase it out and after a brief fight, he slew the monster." An illusionary hulk version of Ryohei had then stomped out from behind a quaint little house and beat his chest upon illusionary Mukuron's challenge. A scuffle then started between the two illusionary figures.

"Go prince Mukuron! Defeat Ryoryo!"

Illusionary Mukuron stopped momentarily and bowed to Sho, "_Yes, my Majesty._" Then jumped on the ogre and proceeded to whale on him. Sho grinned happily at illusionary Mukuron when he came out victorious, leaving Ryoryo on the ground in a crumpled heap. Mukuro was exceedingly pleased when he killed off 'Ryohei' in his illusion, '_Hah! Take that you noisy bastard!'_

"… Then in the next village, Prince Mukuron saved a fairy, Sora, from bandits. In order to thank him, she gave him a horse to carry him to the next village." An illusion of a fairy in an azure dress with chestnut hair and pink wings appeared. Her rather Tsuna-like features were distorted with fear as she tried to escape the grabbing hands of the dirty bandits. The illusionary pineapple head had ran up then and proceeded to bash the bandits into pulp. Thus fending them off and successfully protecting Sora.

"Sora really looks like Tsuna-ji. And the horse looks stupid hahaha!" Sho laughed, pointing at the illusionary black and white horse that looks remarkably like a cow. "Oya oya? Are you insulting my design skills?" Mukuro teased, smirking slightly as Sho grinned at him in response.

"Nope!" Sho quipped, obviously meaning the opposite. "I want to name the horse 'Lambo'!"

"Brat." Mukuro said, ruffling the boy's hair. "Back to the story, Prince Mukuron entered a dark forest that lay just before the dragon's lair. In the forest, he encountered a zombie with its brain stuck to a tree, making it immobile. As Mukuron passed by the tree, the brain shouted out, 'hey! Can you return me to my body?'" At that, a green, patched up Rain Guardian materialised, frozen in place with a shocked expression as his brain hung from a fork in the tree.

"Mukuron decided that it was useless trying to help and left-"

"Nooo! Prince Mukuron! You've got to help the poor zombie!" Sho cried out, feeling immense pity for the trapped zombie.

In the illusionary scene, Mukuron turned to Sho and said, "_But my Majesty, the zombie may be evil, it would be better not to help him."_

"No no! He looks like Takeshi-ji! Takeshi-ji is nice so the zombie is nice too!" Sho insisted stubbornly. Mukuro sighed at the child's logic and relented. And to think that he was having so much fun making 'Yamamoto' beg and look pathetic too!

"Mukuron changed his mind and decided to help the zombie. The zombie was thus able to move when Mukuron retrieved his brain and plopped it back inside his head. Just then, a loud roar echoed through the forest. The dragon detected an intrusion in his forest and flew out to investigate." In the illusion, a black shadow had shaded the trees above the heads of Mukuron and the zombie.

"Ooh! I wanna let the dragon breathe fire!" Sho exclaimed before he conjured an illusion of a lance of flame striking down from the sky. The flames immediately started to lick at the trees and swept ever closer to the Prince and the zombie.

"That's a good illusion, you are improving." Mukuro nodded approvingly. Sho was taking a longer time to feel exhausted by the use of his flames than expected—Mukuro had expected him to fall asleep by now, but Sho still seemed energetic—and this could only mean that Sho had gained a better control over his flames. Mukuro would never say it out loud, but this knowledge made him really proud.

"Shielded by the trees, Mukuron decided to let the zombie run away while he slipped away to the lair to search for the princess first before he hunted the dragon. Inside the lair, Mukuron quickly found Nagiko chained to the wall. Destroying the chain, Mukuron embraced Nagiko tightly in relief." An illusionary cave shimmered into existence courtesy of Sho and as Mukuron ventured in, the light from his torch got reflected off the precious stones and treasure piled in the cave or embedded in the walls.

"Kufufu~ Good work there, Sho. Great detail and realistic effects." Mukuro complimented as he studied the illusion. A yawn escaped Sho then even as he grinned happily at the praise.

"Just then, the dragon flew into the cave and landed right in front of the Prince and the Princess. The dragon roared in fury as Mukuron drew his sword. He sliced down as the dragon tried to snap at him and then-" Mukuro stopped when he suddenly heard a sound from just outside the room.

"What happened next?" Sho asked eagerly.

"And then he-" Mukuro started.

"And then he missed and the dragon bit him to death." A new voice interjected.

"Papa! Mama!"

"Little Herbivore, why aren't you asleep yet?" Hibari asked, his face impassive even as he leant down to stroke his son's hair. Chrome sat down on the other side of Sho and hugged him.

"Mukuro-ji was telling me a story! Ne, what happens next?" Sho asked, turning to Mukuro who had been returning Hibari's glares quid pro quo.

"No. You should be sleeping already." Hibari said.

"Papa! I want to hear the story!" Sho whined, turning puppy eyes to Hibari, who quickly looked away, his stoic mask still firmly in place, "No."

"Kyouya! Let Sho finish listening to the story!" Chrome admonished when Sho pouted and sulked. Hibari turned to her with a betrayed expression but Chrome only stared back with one eyebrow raised.

"… Fine."

Mukuro snickered and made a whipping sound. At this, Hibari growled irritably and pounced on Mukuro, his tonfas held in his hands.

"Kamikorosu."

"Oya oya, is the little kitty angry?" Mukuro taunted, countering Hibari's blows with his trident.

"Stop fighting!"

Both men froze when they heard Chrome shout. Both of them had been on the receiving end of the female Mist Guardian's anger before and let's just say that it hadn't been _pleasant._ There was a brief stand off before the two men lowered their weapons and backed away from each other obediently.

"Mukuro-sama, please continue the story. Come on, Kyouya, let's go back to our room." Chrome said as she looped her arm around Hibari's and tugged him out of the room. Mukuro put on his most shit-eating smirk when the Cloud Guardian when the ex-prefect turned back to scowl him. Hibari snarled again but was yanked away before he can do anything.

Mukuro snickered to himself before he turned back to his godson only to find that Sho had already fallen asleep. Mukuro bent to rearrange the pillows around the sleeping boy. '_He must be really tired if he could fall asleep despite our scuffle.' _Then, he brushed Sho's ebony hair out of his eyes and leant down to place a kiss on the child's forehead.

"_Buona notte, il mio bambino."_

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_-Omake-_

"Tsuna-nii… Mukuro-nii is scary."

"Haha! I didn't know that Mukuro had such a great imagination!"

"That creepy bastard! How dare he portray Jyuudaime as a fairy?! Jyuudaime is too manly to be a wimpy fairy!"

"But he didn't mention Tsu-kun's name did he?"

"Shhh guys! He might hear us!"

Tsuna shushed his Guardians and wife as he pressed his ears to the heavy mahogany door that led into Sho's room. They had decided to listen in on Mukuro's bedtime story to hear what kind of gory horror he will cook up to scare the little boy only to hear him narrate a rather mishmashed fairytale-ish story with them as characters. All of them except Kyoko had shivered when they first heard it as a image of Mukuro smiling gently in a pink, sparkly background with rainbows and little bunnies hopping around popped unbidden into their heads. It was plain creepy and _unnatural._

"I can't stand this…" Gokudera muttered as Mukuro described a magical garden filled with talking cats and caterpillars on mushrooms.

"I'd rather he talk about people digging out their own eyeballs in fear." Lambo whispered back.

"Shh! I want to hear the sto-"

"What are all of you doing to the EXTREME?!"

"Hieee!"

"Gah!"

Both Gokudera and Tsuna jumped as two large hands clapped down on their shoulders while the others whipped around, their faces pale.

"O-onii-san…" Tsuna stuttered, putting his hand over his heart in shock, "You scared us!"

"We have to go before Mukuro catches us!" Lambo said, grabbing on to the nearest hand (who happened to be Kyoko) and ran away.

"We'll explain later!" Tsuna said hastily, snapping out of his shock as he dashed away with Gokudera and Yamamoto.

Mukuro smirked slightly as he heard the eavesdroppers run away, he had known they were there of course, but there was nothing he can do without leaving Sho. '_Hope they enjoyed the image.' (_Yes, he's the one that sent the image of himself in a pink background to the eavesdroppers.)

~Owari~

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**Right, so it's done! Hope you've enjoyed it. It's pointless fluff, really. **

**The -ji honorific is used to denote uncle, so 'Mukuro-ji' means Uncle Mukuro. Yup. Correct me if I'm wrong. And in case anyone wants to know, Sho's name means 'to soar' or 'to fly'. I figured that since his father is the skylark, it makes sense that he'll want to name his child something that has to do with freedom and the ability to wander without restraint. I know that Hibari seems really aloof and uncaring to his kid here, but he really loves Sho okay? **

**Sora means 'sky' and refers to Tsuna.**

**Do review and tell me what you think! I hope it wasn't too confusing when I had to switch between the story Mukuro was narrating and the descriptions of his illusions! And also, Sho did most of the illusions of the stationary objects.**

**Thanks for reading~**


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